Sparkle for Instagram

v1.1.0 · Tested on versions 438.0.0 and 410.1.0

📣 Telegram Channel · 💬 Chat & Support · 📥 Releases · 🐛 Issues · ☕ Donate

---

Note

• To open Sparkle's settings, see Opening Sparkle Settings.
• Releases and announcements go out on the Telegram channel; questions and help happen in the chat group.
• Feature request or bug report? Open an issue.

What is Sparkle?

Sparkle is a Theos tweak that reshapes the iOS Instagram app around you. Download any media, keep a private on-device gallery, recover deleted messages, run each account with its own settings, analyze your followers, and strip out the ads, AI, and annoyances.

It started as a fork of SoCuul's SCInsta, but has since been rewritten and extended far beyond it.

• Targets iOS 15.0+, built with the iOS 16.2 SDK.
• Works jailbroken (tested via Dopamine on iOS 16.7.16) and sideloaded (Feather, SideStore, LiveContainer etc.).
• Written in Objective-C / Objective-C++ / Logos.

Highlights

For the full list of features, check out FEATURES.md.

• Media downloads:
  • Save feed posts, reels, stories, DMs, Instants, and comments.
  • An action-based download manager with a queue, retries, duplicate detection, and configurable concurrency.
  • High-quality DASH video+audio merging via FFmpegKit.
• Private Gallery:
  • An on-device media library with folders, search, metadata, source overlays, and an optional passcode / Face ID / Touch ID lock. Nothing ever leaves your device.
• Built-in editors:
  • Trim any video down to a clip, a single still frame, or audio-only.
  • A photo editor with crop / pan-zoom / rotate / flip.
  • Reachable from the gallery, media preview, or an opt-in action button.
• Action buttons everywhere:
  • Fully customizable action-button menus on feed, reels, stories, DMs, Instants, and profiles.
  • Reorder, rename, re-icon, and set per-surface default tap actions.
  • An optional feed-header shortcut button for one-tap access to Gallery, Profile Analyzer, Deleted Messages, Downloads or Settings.
• Keep deleted messages:
  • Preserve unsent DMs, log removed reactions, and recover view-once media, with a browsable log.
• Profile Analyzer:
  • Fetches your followers/following and surfaces mutuals, non-followbacks, and a durable change log (new/lost followers, profile updates) across scans.
• Per-account settings:
  • Each logged-in account keeps its own preferences, gallery scope, and download history.
• Privacy & focus:
  • Hide ads, Meta AI, and suggested content.
  • Disable seen receipts, typing status, screenshot detection, and view-once limits.
  • Block doom-scrolling.
  • Hide tabs and UI clutter.
• Confirmations:
  • Optional "are you sure?" guards for accidental likes, follows, reposts, calls, comments, and more.
• Liquid Glass (iOS 26+):
  • Native Liquid Glass integration across Sparkle's own UI, plus an option to force-enable Instagram's.
  • On iOS 18 and lower, a Pill-Shaped Tab Bar toggle brings the floating pill tab bar (shape only; the glass material stays iOS 26+).

Installation

Important

Sparkle does not ship Instagram itself. Pre-injected IPAs are distributed on the Telegram channel, and the jailbroken .deb is on Releases.

Sideloaded

1. Grab the latest pre-injected IPA from the Telegram channel.
2. Install the IPA with your sideloading tool of choice.
   • Use the _sidestore build for AltStore / SideStore / LiveContainer (or if you don't want to have app extensions).

Note

Sparkle uses Instagram's bundled image assets everywhere. The distributed IPA is a full (un-thinned) build (it contains icons for all screen sizes), so the higher-quality in-app icons render crisply on every device. If you build your own from an IPA that was already thinned to a smaller device, some icon scales may be missing. See Building from source.

Jailbroken

1. Download the rootless or rootful .deb from Releases.
2. Open the .deb in Sileo/Zebra (or install it with dpkg -i over SSH), then respring.

Build it yourself

You can build from source locally, or fork the repo and run the Build and Package Sparkle GitHub Action with your own decrypted IPA URL. The injected IPA lands as a draft release in your fork. See Building from source.

Opening Sparkle Settings

By default, long-press the Home tab or the Profile settings button to open Sparkle Settings. You can also enable Show Settings on App Launch. If you hide the Home tab, the long-press automatically moves to another visible tab so Settings is always reachable.

Screenshots

Settings	How to Access

Building from source

Prerequisites

• Xcode + Command-Line Developer Tools
• Homebrew
• Theos with the iPhoneOS16.2.sdk in ~/theos/sdks
• brew install ldid dpkg make cmake (plus the FFmpeg build deps: autoconf automake libtool meson nasm ninja pkgconf wget yasm)
• For sideloading only: cyan and ipapatch

Setup

1. Install the iOS 16.2 SDK for Theos — download from xybp888/iOS-SDKs and copy iPhoneOS16.2.sdk into ~/theos/sdks.
2. Clone with submodules:

   git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/efibalogh/sparkle-ig
   cd sparkle-ig

3. Fetch the FFmpegKit frameworks (used for video/audio merging & trimming):

   ./fetch-ffmpegkit.sh

4. For sideloading: obtain a decrypted, un-thinned Instagram IPA from a trusted source, rename it to com.burbn.instagram.ipa, and place it in a packages/ folder at the repo root.

Important

Use a universal decrypted IPA. An IPA that was already thinned to a specific device (e.g. dumped on an older iPhone) might be missing higher-scale icons/image assets, which makes icons and image assets blurry on newer devices.

Alternatively, if you own a jailbroken device, I recommend using ipadecrypt, which provides an un-thinned IPA regardless of your device's screen size.

Build

./build.sh rootless          # rootless .deb (jailbroken)
./build.sh rootful           # rootful .deb (jailbroken)
./build.sh ipa --release     # sideload IPA (= --inject --ffmpeg --patch)

The ipa command takes composable flags:

Flag	Effect
--release	Shorthand for --inject --ffmpeg --patch
--inject	Inject Sparkle.dylib
--ffmpeg	Bundle the FFmpegKit frameworks
--flex	Bundle libFLEX.dylib (in-app debugging)
--patch	Run ipapatch
--no-ext	Strip all .appex bundles before injection
--sidestore	Shorthand for --release --no-ext (for SideStore)
--dev	DEV=1 build
--buildonly	Build dylibs only, skip IPA packaging
--bundle-id <id>	Override the bundle ID

Outputs are named with the Sparkle version (and, for IPAs, the bundled Instagram version) so builds are easy to tell apart:

• IPA: Sparkle[_<flags>]_v<version>_IG_v<ig version>.ipa (e.g. Sparkle_v1.0.0_IG_v437.2.0.ipa, or Sparkle_no-flex_v1.0.0_IG_v437.2.0.ipa)
• deb: Sparkle_v<version>_<rootless|rootful>.deb

Run ./build.sh with no arguments for the full usage reference.

Recompiling the Liquid Glass app icons

The app icons are pre-compiled into resources/sparkle_icons/ to keep IPA packaging fast. If you change the source .icon bundles in resources/, recompile them with actool before building:

mkdir -p resources/compiled_sparkle resources/compiled_sparkle_dark resources/compiled_sparkle_neutral

xcrun actool resources/sparkle.icon         --compile resources/compiled_sparkle         --platform iphoneos --minimum-deployment-target 15.0 --app-icon sparkle         --output-partial-info-plist resources/sparkle_partial.plist         --target-device iphone --target-device ipad
xcrun actool resources/sparkle-dark.icon    --compile resources/compiled_sparkle_dark    --platform iphoneos --minimum-deployment-target 15.0 --app-icon sparkle-dark    --output-partial-info-plist resources/sparkle_dark_partial.plist    --target-device iphone --target-device ipad
xcrun actool resources/sparkle-neutral.icon --compile resources/compiled_sparkle_neutral --platform iphoneos --minimum-deployment-target 15.0 --app-icon sparkle-neutral --output-partial-info-plist resources/sparkle_neutral_partial.plist --target-device iphone --target-device ipad

mkdir -p resources/sparkle_icons
cp resources/compiled_sparkle/*.png resources/compiled_sparkle_dark/*.png resources/compiled_sparkle_neutral/*.png resources/sparkle_icons/
rm -rf resources/compiled_sparkle resources/compiled_sparkle_dark resources/compiled_sparkle_neutral resources/*_partial.plist

Contributing

Contributions are greatly appreciated! Feel free to open a pull request.

• New hooked IG classes/methods go in src/InstagramHeaders.h
• Prefix all custom symbols with spk_ / SPK.
• Break new features into src/Features/<Surface>/ rather than bloating Tweak.x.

Not a coder? Documentation improvements are always appreciated too.

Support the project

Sparkle takes a lot of time to develop and maintain as Instagram changes constantly, and I can only work on it in my limited amount of free time. If you'd like to support the work:

• ☕ Donate on Ko-fi.
• 📣 Join and share the Telegram channel.
• ⭐ Star the repo and tell people who'd like it.

Credits

• SoCuul • SCInsta: the base project Sparkle is built on.
• BandarHL • BHInstagram: the original tweak SCInsta forked from.
• Ryuk • RyukGram: code, inspiration, and help.
• @n3d1117 • InstaSane: the Following-feed mode.
• @asdfzxcvbn • zxPluginsInject / ipapatch / cyan: tooling and fixes for sideloaded installs.
• @BillyCurtis • OpenInstagramSafariExtension: open Instagram links in Safari in the sideloaded IPA.

License

Sparkle is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.